1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing method and, more particularly, to a method for extending a print area, so as to provide the capability of printing an image larger than a conventional print area on a piece of paper by extending the print area during the printing of the image.
2. Related Art
Printers may be classified as impact-type printers or nonimpact-type printers according to whether the head thereof contacts or does not contact a piece of paper. A representative impact-type printer is a dot printer. Representative nonimpact-type printers are a laser printer and an ink jet printer.
In the case of the dot printer, it is not necessary to consider the minimum bottom margin since printing is performed on paper punched on the left and right ends thereof so that a tractor arranged to be parallel to the direction of movement of the head moves the paper. However, additional tractor paper must be used.
In the case of the laser printer, after a drum is covered with toner using a laser beam modulated in accordance with a picture signal, the toner is loaded under high-temperature heat while pressing the drum against the paper. In this case, the bottom margin is small and the printable area is larger than that of an ink jet printer since paper is ejected to a final exit roller after printing is finished.
In the case of the ink jet printer, letters and pictures are outputted by densely forming dots as in the dot printer. However, printing is performed after a piece of paper passes through an exit roller and moves to a head using a method of performing printing in units of lines using an ink head. When the ink jet printer performs printing, the exit roller holds the lower end of a piece of paper to the end thereof and ejects the paper before the set low end margin. Therefore, a large-width lower end margin is necessary. Accordingly, the printable area becomes smaller.